Valentine’s Day

Isn’t it time we examined why we encourage our children to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day – when it is never mentioned in the Bible as a practice of the New Testament Church?

Let’s stop teaching our children these pagan customs in memory of Baal the sun god – the original St. Valentine – and teach them instead what the Bible really says!

The Silence of Educators

Teachers are all too often silent about the origin of the customs they are forced to teach in today’s schools! If they were to speak out, many would lose their jobs!

Isn’t it time we examined why we encourage our children to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day – when it is never mentioned in the Bible as a practice of the New Testament Church?

Today, candy makers unload tons of heart-shaped red boxes for February 14, while millions of the younger set are annually exchanging valentines. Florists consider February 14 – St. Valentine’s Day – as one of their best business days. And young lovers pair off – at least for a dance or two – at St. Valentine’s balls.

Why? Where did these customs originate? Where do we find any such practices in the Bible?

How did we come to inherit these customs?

A Christian Custom?

Did you know that centuries before Christ, the pagan Romans celebrated February 15 and the evening of February 14 as an idolatrous and sensuous festival in honor of Lupercus, the “hunter of wolves”?

The Romans called the festival the “Lupercalia.” The custom of exchanging valentines and all the other traditions in honor of Lupercus – the deified hero-hunter of Rome- was also linked anciently with the pagan practice of teen-agers “going steady.” It usually led to fornication. Today, the custom of “going steady” is thought very modern. It isn’t. It is merely a rebirth of an old custom “handed down from the Roman festival of the Lupercalia, celebrated in the month of February, when names of young women were put into a box and drawn out by men as chance directed.” That’s the admission of the Encyclopedia Americana, article, “St. Valentine’s Day.”

When Constantine made “Christianity” the official religion of the Roman Empire there was some talk in church circles of discarding this pagan free-for-all. But the Roman citizens wouldn’t hear of it! So it was agreed that the holiday would continue as it was, except for the more grossly sensual observances.

It was not until the reign of Pope Gelasius that the holiday became a “Christian” custom. “As far back as 496, Pope Gelasius changed Lupercalia on February 15 to St. Valentine’s Day on February 14.” (p. 172 of Customs and Holidays Around the World by Lavinia Dobler). (Pope Gelasius)